Chapter 6
They found the treasure that afternoon, despite their exhaustion. Out of the three of them, Morgana was the most shocked at that; despite the increase in the distortions present in Kamoshida's castle, the cat had assumed they would have a larger stretch to cover before they would manage to find the floating grey blob, which Morgana assured them wasthe treasure, within the very last room of Kamoshida's castle. Akira was shocked too, only about the shape the treasure had taken, but he supposed that anything could happen within a world made of cognition.
The Metaverse, however, had one glaring flaw. One that Akira wish they'd known before traversing through the palace. He doubted that it would change his mind though.
The three of them, technically the two of them, would have to interact with Kamoshida in the real world in such a way that the treasure would materialize within Kamoshida's heart.
Morgana's recommended method was in the form of a calling card. One that they would post all over their school. The shock, Morgana theorized, would be enough to cause Kamoshida's treasure to become less blob-like.
He was really starting to hate that word.
Still, that left one thing they couldn't entirely account for.
Dealing with Kamoshida's shadow.
They hadn't seen hide nor hair of the panty-wearing being since their last encounter. The guards, in between begging for their lives, hadn't mentioned seeing their fabulous king either. That was enough to cause even more anxiety to be stressed on the situation. How were they supposed to gather a weakness or method of neutralizing the shadow if they never saw it; and they couldn't spy on the real Kamoshida for an answer, as that would raise suspicion unnecessarily before they, or Sakamoto rather, posted the calling card.
All in all, Akira was nothing if not a nervous mess, not that he could show it.
Not in Shujin.
Not in front of Sakura-san.
Morgana, though, seemed to see right through him, an unfortunate side effect of no longer having a mask covering a large portion of his face.
"Joker," The cat whined, interrupting his thought process by stepping directly on his neck, "Stop worrying about it, I'm your mentor, remember? We can take down this palace easily if you stay with me!" He announced loudly, a cheeky grin spreading between his whiskers, or Akira assumed it was something to that effect, Morgana's form in the real world was much less anthropomorphic than his Metaverse self.
He pressed his fingers to his lips, urging, not for the first time, that the feline lower his volume. Even though the cat had said that people who'd never been in the Metaverse could hear him, it was better safe than sorry, especially since he had sneaked the cat through LeBlanc without asking Sakura-san if that was okay.
He had a feeling that having an animal in a restaurant was going to be a no from the older man, even if that restaurant only served curry. Worst case scenario: he was evicted for being too much trouble. So, keeping the cat a secret would be the best option, and that meant keeping his feline companion quiet. Which was becoming more and more difficult the more time passed. Morgana, despite the persona he presents, not Zorro, he was quite the antsy brat when it came to sitting still.
He didn't know what to do with a cat, especially not one with human-level intelligence and could talk. He had a feeling a mouse on a string wouldn't suffice.
The afternoon drifted quickly into evening, it was mere blind luck that Akira, and Morgana he supposed, had exited the Metaverse before Café LeBlanc closed, otherwise they, or just him rather, would have been reprimanded, which would, no doubt, lead to Morgana being discovered. And soon enough, the muffled musings of Sojiro's customer base dwindled into nothingness. And, not soon after the bell on the café's door jingled for the last time, was Sakura-san mounting the creaking stairs to LeBlanc's attic.
Which meant…
"Hide, hide, hide!" He signed consecutively, each more frantic than the last. He couldn't help momentarily losing himself in the blind panic that coursed through his bloodstream as he heard Sakura-san getting closer and closer to the landing. It only occurred to him when he heard Sakura-san's grumbling from the stairs that Morgana didn't actually know sign language.
The cat stared at him, his blue pupils wide and the confusion apparent on his less expressive face. Something he would marvel at that later!
He threw the cat, the actual cat, under the blanket on the bed and quickly balled it up before throwing it back down.
Morgana, thankfully, stayed silent.
"Yo." Sakura-san said, nearly giving him a heart attack.
Akira turned around, hoping he didn't look as frazzled as he felt, it took time to put his mask into place! Uncertain, he raised a hand in greeting.
Sakura-san hummed, a thick rumbling that only years of smoking could produce.
He glanced up, just long enough to catch a glimpse of the older man's gaze, which was, to his complete misfortune, narrowed in on the now wiggling ball of fabric on his bed.
Seriously… His mind supplied, though his annoyance was cut short as Sakura-san took a step forward. Akira, cautious as ever, took a step back. However, there wasn't much space from where he had been standing and the frame of the bed, which produced a metallic hum as his leg collided with it. He paid it no mind, his heart making enough noise within his ears to deafen him.
Akira felt his entire body tense up as Sakura-san grew closer and closer.
The slow motions of the middle-aged man was enough to set him off, a massive anticipatory flinch threw his body back onto the bed. Fortunately, Sakura-san wasn't looking at him, otherwise he might have ended up breaking down further. Somehow, wordlessly, the man exuded an aura that reminded him of things he didn't want to remember, though they were only days ago.
Sakura-san cast the duvet aside, revealing Morgana, who stood up and presented himself proudly to the newcomer.
His stomach plummeted, sweat already drowning between his clenched fingers.
Akira's mind produced a loud humming noise, an endless crackle of anxiety and fear. The look in Sakura-san's eyes said it all.
"I was wondering why I heard meowing!" The man shouted, Akira flinched again, his chin tucking pitifully towards his neck, carefully avoiding the older man's gaze, "What did you bring it here for?"
The force behind Sakura-san's voice melted the next time he spoke, "Then again… I guess you might stay on good behavior if you had a pet to take care of."
It picked back up again, "Still!" Akira could feel his glare and didn't need to look up from the floor, "This is a restaurant! Animals are a no-go. How could you be so idiotic?"
Against his will, his vision turned foggy, his resolve exhausted from a day in the cognitive world, and, soon enough, warm blobs of liquid emotions were trailing down his cheeks. He was too exhausted to wipe them away, and instead, sat there, crying like a child after Sakura-san had merely raised his voice at him.
The physical strikes never came, like he'd expected them to.
"Fine." Sakura-san sighed, "You can keep it, but don't keep it quiet during business hours. And don't let it down into the kitchen, or I'll have to throw it out."
Despite having received no punishment, Akira was still unable to stop himself from crying. He was, despite what Morgana prattled in the Metaverse, a weakling. Surely this, if anything, would ruin the impression the cat had made of him.
He couldn't manage to look towards his now official roommate. His fuzzy gaze locked onto the floor and refused to look away.
"Is that the ruler of this place?" Morgana asked once Sakura-san's figure melted down the stairs.
Akira nodded shortly.
"He seemed pretty understanding for someone who keeps you cramped in this dump…" Akira didn't have a response. His life was a dump, more so than LeBlanc's attic, what did it matter besides having a place to sleep.
Akira sat there, rather shocked that it had went that smoothly, nothing ever went that smoothly!
His heartrate took an unexpected spike, however, when he noticed Sakura-san ascending the stairs once again.
This was it. The sinking in his stomach from Morgana's reveal was now fluxed with pain, his insides cramping with his instincts telling him to hide.
Hiding would be useless, though.
Sakura-san could already see him.
The older man approached slowly, and Akira cringed, wishing that it would just be over with already.
Suddenly, a weight was pushed into his lap and he wondered when he'd managed to seal his eyes shut.
"Don't expect this kind of treatment every day, alright? This isn't a hotel." Sakura-san said from right beside him.
H-hotel? His mind sputtered, working into overdrive in sightless confusion.
The black canvas behind his eyelids was sliced in half with reluctance. With his eyes open, Akira was easily able to identify the weight that had been placed in his laps.
It wasn't a belt, not had it been Morgana, pouncing into his lap in fear.
Just because the gift didn't have the potential to harm him, unless Sakura-san managed to get creative, didn't mean it made him any less uncomfortable.
In his lap, currently warming a hole through his thighs, was a plate of LeBlanc's curry.
His stomach lurched forebodingly, and if he weren't already caked in sweat from head to toe from Sakura-san's earlier appearance, it would be doing so now.
Akira glanced up at his caretaker.
Fortunately, Sakura-san's gaze was not on him, and instead gazing dotingly upon Morgana, as he lapped at a large saucer of milk.
"Make sure to clean those dishes, by the way." The older man muttered, still staring, unblinking, at Morgana. The cat seemed to croon under the attention, as small feline chuckles warbled through its open mouth as it continued drinking.
Akira nodded.
His brain was fried.
"So, have you—" Sakura-san cleared his throat, "Have you decided on a name?" Technically, he had not, Morgana had exposed his own name, and Sakamoto had chosen the cat's code name. He shook his head slightly, his neck still stiff from fearing for his future.
Sakura-san, as if his answer had flipped a switch, chuckled giddily, a massive, crooked smirk scrunching up the skin around his mouth. He looked like a completely different person, an alternate version of the glaring, scowling Sakura-san he had come to know in the past few days.
Morgana's preening ended, and the cat was eyeing their caretaker in thinly concealed suspicion.
"Kaito." Sakura-san said simply, looking quite pleased with himself as he crossed his arms over his apron-clad chest.
…Ocean?
The name, most likely, spawned from Morgana's massive blue eyes, which were currently shifting between the two humans in the room, and glaring menacingly.
"I think he likes that…" Sakura-san mused, lowering a hand to rub between Morgana's ears.
Immediately, the cat protested, affronted at the prospect of being pet, "H-hey! Stop—oh!" The feline all but purred out his final syllable. Akira watched as his companion strained his neck forward, urging more and more of his black fur under Sakura-san's hand.
It was almost alarming, how quickly the atmosphere in the room had shifted. Between him thinking it was going to be like back home, only to find his menacing looking caretaker smiling and cooing down at the sword-wielding cat.
He hoped it wasn't too selfish of him to continue keeping Morgana around. Though Sakamoto didn't seem too fond of their mentor, so that was one less opinion to worry about, and if alleviated the awkward tension of LeBlanc's atmosphere, he'd gladly keep the feline fed and washed.
Morgana frowned when the ministrations finally ended, the cat whined in protest, much to Sakura-san's amusement.
"Loud one, aren't you?" The older man teased.
Morgana pursued the fleeting hand with surprising bubbliness, or surprising to Akira at least, "Down, kitty!" His caretaker shouted, but there was no force behind it, not like when that voice was directed at him.
"A-anyway," Sakura-san said, sobering up almost instantly as he gazed down at Akira, "Make sure to clean those plates and lock up. Got it?" Akira nodded.
Once Sakura-san left, Akira set about doing his assigned tasks, ignoring the numbness from exhaustion that was threatening to collapse all of his limbs.
"Looks like the chief likes me more than he likes you." Morgana stated proudly, lining his body against the large sink LeBlanc had to offer, directly opposing the rules that Sakura-san had placed not moments ago.
Akira cringed, but didn't have a way to communicate with the cat while his hands were soaking wet.
"Still, I guess I'll have to thank you for taking in me in." Morgana continued, flicking his tail over the counter, even more forbidden territory. "It's probably much better here than at Ryuji's, even with the mess upstairs."
He shrugged, he didn't know much about Sakamoto, and what he did know was not information about his living space.
"So, thanks." Morgana put out awkwardly.
Again, Akira shrugged. He'd have to come up with a better way at communicating with the cat, besides his minimal gestures. Flipping his phone out during a palace, even in rooms with low distortion, could result in rather unfortunate circumstances.
He wondered if he'd be the first person to teach a cat sign language.
To call Morgana just a cat though…
Doing the dishes had been the most time consuming part of what he'd been assigned, in addition to the two plates that Sakura-san had given them, Akira's untouched while Morgana's was wiped clean, the sink was also full of similar looking plates and a small mountain of coffee cups.
Cleaning them all left his hands pleasantly warm and more than a little pruned.
Morgana followed him around the café while he did his chores, much to Akira's chagrin. Had Morgana not listened to a word Sakura-san had said? Surely not, otherwise the feline wouldn't be strutting around the café like he owned the place.
Still, he had to admit, though he knew very little about his own aesthetics, that Morgana's form in the real world was very soft looking and a lot less hard on the eyes than his Metaverse counterpart.
Finally, after nearly an hour after Sakura-san had left them, or him rather, to clean up the café, was he finally able to turn LeBlanc's lights off and return to the café's attic.
His phone was blinking brightly when he climbed into bed.
"Yo! I finished the calling card, but I'm exhausted, so night, dude!" Sakamoto told him.
Morgana glanced at the device in his hands.
"You two can communicate with these things, huh?" The cat asked, despite having seen its effects twice now.
Akira nodded, preparing his own text message to reply to Sakamoto.
"I'll definitely need in on this," The cat appealed, "But… I don't really have fingers, so you'll have to do it for me!"
Akira shrugged one shoulder, the other one buried under his torso and part of his pillow.
"Tell Ryuji I say 'Hello Ryuji'!" The cat commanded.
"Good work. Morgana says Hello Ryuji." Send.
Sakamoto didn't reply.
Akira cradled himself further into his blanket, attempting to tune out Morgana's whining at their lack of reply until he finally lost consciousness.
